


Bound

by Leni



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/F, Gap Filler, Temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post <span class="u">Kushiel's Mercy</span>. Melisande & Phèdre, <i>Three weeks after Imriel's wedding, Phèdre gets the first letter.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound

**Author's Note:**

> _Written for[The Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon](http://penny-lane-42.livejournal.com/164912.html?thread=3233840#t3233840)._

Three weeks after Imriel's wedding, Phèdre gets the first letter.

_So the Kusheline line rises to the throne. Would that it be my victory instead of yours._

Phèdre smiles, much as she had when Imriel pouted over a broken toy. _He's your blood,_ she writes back, attempting to pacify a temper that never comprehended peace. _Let that be enough._

Two months later, Phèdre breaks an unfamiliar seal and reads, _Enough. What vicious words you have learned in our time apart._ Two days after the letter comes a package, born by a weary man who implies he'll stay in the City until there's word back for his mistress. The wrapping is as poor as the contents are sumptuous, a dress and matching cape, the fabric so soft to the touch and rich to the eye that even Favrielle nó Eglantine would cry in envy. "A patron gift after all these years. To show it will never be enough, Melisande?" Phèdre murmurs, laying the dress on her and Joscelin's bed - a part of her feels she's betraying an unspoken vow; but it's a vow that she could never have been made to keep.

She is who she is, and Melisande represents everything she could have been.

Years don't matter. Loyalties don't matter. Even love, the strongest love that ties together a Cassiline and one of Naamah's Servants, must step back when the chain binding that who bears Kushiel's Dart is yanked by his most favoured scion. They are who they are, indeed; so Melisande must come between her and the world, no matter that it's the world separating the both of them, or that it was, ultimately, Phèdre's own hand which separated them.

Slave to her desires she might be, and Melisande the brightest star among them (the sun that would have scorched Terre d'Ange). Powerful and charismatic, ruthless and patient, Melisande is the queen Phèdre could not bring herself to serve.

Now she is mother to their future king. Just as Phèdre is his foster mother. Another truth that has bound them together for a decade and more, another truth that never needed words, as the boy was part of them, more deeply impressed into their souls than the ecstasy of their bedroom games and the betrayal (to self) that played into their every other encounter.

But the boy shall be a king now.

Trust Melisande to make a point across the ocean, from her lover's lands to the continent and through the walls she shall never cross in life. "You used to be more subtle than this," Phèdre drafts aloud the start of her responding letter, stepping back and contemplating the dress. Fit for royalty - in the colors of Shahrizai House. She will not try it on, for she knows that it will fit her as if Favrielle herself had made it for her. _The games we play, Melisande, shall we never learn new rules?_ Phèdre thinks, and she surprises herself with a touch of fondness as she imagines the other's expression when the words are read. A game, indeed. Beautiful as it is, it is poison to her standing, and for a moment the more tempting for it. If she were to wear this to court, she might as well declare herself to be still (and always) Melisande's creature.

Phèdre shakes her head.

Some things, Ysandre's court does not need to know.

She folds the dress again, sets it within the soft silks and covers the bundle with the yellowed papers where it arrived. When she gives it back, the messenger shows no surprise. "This was to be given in exchange for the gift," he says, handing her another envelope.

_Tell me you didn't give it a thought._

_I can picture it. You in my colors, my chosen representative in my son's presence. Oh, Phèdre. Tell me you didn't picture it, too._

Phèdre can tell her no such thing.

 

The End  
09/10/10


End file.
